The Innocent

Chapter





63


ROBIE KNEW A quick way out of the WFO and was in his car and waiting out front when Michele Cohen pulled out of the parking garage and raced down the street in her BMW coupe. He slid into traffic behind her. She cleared three yellow lights and he narrowly avoided being trapped behind the last of them. Ten minutes later they were heading up Connecticut Avenue toward Maryland.

Robie was keeping his eye on the Beemer and thus failed to see the two police cars converging on his Volvo. The cops hit their rack lights and the officer in the cruiser on Robie’s left motioned him over. Robie watched the Beemer accelerate and pass through yet another yellow light. A few moments later it was out of sight.

Robie slowed his car and pulled to the curb. He wanted to jump out and start reaming the guys in blue, but knew that might get him shot. He sat there fuming as four cops cautiously approached, two on each side.

“Let me see your hands, sir,” called out one of them.

Robie held his left hand out the window, with his federal badge in it.

He heard one of the cops mutter, “Shit.”

A second later two cops appeared at his window.

Robie said, “I’m sure you guys have a terrific reason for pulling me over while I was tailing someone.”

The first cop pushed his hat back and stared down at Robie’s cred pack.

“Got a call from Dispatch that said a woman was being followed in her car by some guy. She was scared and requested we roll on it. She gave us your car description and plate number.”

“Well, that’s a good way for a perp to evade the police,” said Robie. “Just call in more cops.”

“I’m sorry, sir, we didn’t know.”

“Can I go now?” asked Robie.

“Is she really a suspect? We can help you run her down,” offered the second cop.

“No, I’ll catch up to her later. But in the future, don’t be so quick to hit the panic button.”

“Yes, sir.”

Robie eased the Volvo away from the curb and pulled back into traffic. In his rearview mirror he watched the cops congregating around their cruisers, no doubt wondering if this screwup was going to cost them career-wise. Robie had no interest in derailing them professionally. It had actually been a clever, if ballsy move by Cohen. She could always claim she didn’t know who was in the car, only that someone was following her. And she could tack on the completely true facts that she had just been to visit the FBI and was a valuable witness in a horrific crime and was understandably afraid for her safety.

No, Robie would have to go after her another way. Fortunately, it would not be that difficult to track Cohen down. Her home address was in the file Vance had let him read.

He crossed over into Maryland and worked his way through a number of surface roads until he reached the one he wanted.

Michele Cohen didn’t live in a McMansion, but she did live in an upscale neighborhood. Yet according to Cohen she was unemployed. Her most recent job had been with a financial planning firm that had gone belly up. Robie didn’t know what her husband did. Vance had not mentioned it, if she even knew.

Cohen probably could use the money, thought Robie. But he wondered if they had some other dirt on the woman. Money alone, he thought, would not get an otherwise innocent person to go along with lying to the FBI in a possible terrorist case.

Unless she isn’t otherwise innocent.

He wondered if Vance had run a criminal check on Cohen. Or her husband. Or her alleged boyfriend. Possibly not, since Vance clearly did not think she was lying. Like she had said, why would the woman have come forward? Robie could think of at least one reason.

To screw with me.

He pulled his car to the curb and phoned Blue Man.

“Anything on Michele Cohen yet?”

“No, but you’ll be the first to know.”

“I need everything you can find on her husband too.”

“Already doing it. So she lied to the FBI? Said it was two black people instead of you and Julie?”

“Yes.”

“Her motivation?”

“Hopefully we can find it.”

“Tricky move for the other side. They’ve exposed a pawn for us to exploit.”

“I was thinking the same thing. That’s why I’m nervous.”

Robie eyed the end of the street where Cohen’s Beemer was parked in the driveway of a two-story stone and siding home. “I’m going to check some things out. I’ll call back in later. How’s Julie?”

“Safe and sound and doing her homework. The calculus problem she was working on looked far beyond my pay grade.”

“That’s why we’re in the intelligence field,” said Robie. “We suck at math.”

He put his phone away and checked his watch. Cohen would know he had been following her and would also know that he had her home address. His sitting out here would produce nothing useful.

But he had a better idea anyway.

He wasn’t necessarily afraid of pawns. But nobody who knew what they were doing would leave one hanging out there without a good reason.

And now I need to find out what that reason is.